Wow, I am touched and thrilled as I read Christina Sell's (http://christinasell.blogspot.com/) newest book, My Body is a Temple. I picked this book up right when I needed it.
I have been hitting a wall I know very well in my spiritual practice. This wall effects EVERY aspect of my life and creates a familiar drama. I have wept and felt totally helpless around my practices.
Here's what happens: I get really excited about dedicating myself to some practice that Life is calling me to, I do it with zeal, make plans, have expectations for immediate change in my life (kinda like I used to with diets) and then, after about a week to 10 days I get depressed, let down, feel rejected by the Universe and obstinant about how I am different and it just doesn't work for me! Then my little drama that is playing in my head can be true: Once again, I am a victim. Once again, something is wrong with me. Once again, I knew the Universe didn't really have my back.
So, here is the part I keep forgetting: The discipline of practice, prayer, yoga asana, reading, meditation, etc., isn't about me getting the life I think I should get. My fantasy of a nirvana is so limited and adolescent. It is about no longer feeling the pain or whatever sensation I feel when I don't get EXACTLY what I want how I want it when I want it.
Practice is about aligning, again and again, with the Highest. As Christina says, "cultivating a state of remembrance: that our personal efforts are gestures of affirmation to help us experience ourselves as part of a larger spiritual flow" (7). Christina calls it the art of devotion, discipleship and conscious living.
For so long my view has been about changing me so I could finally make it in this world. I learned that I had to make me comfortable and it never occurred to me that my idea of comfortable wasn't always (or even often) that productive, healthy or life-affirming. I am reminded of what Paul Muller-Ortega calls,"adult spirituality". As an adult I get to choose what and whom I align with at every level: thought, word, deed, etc.. It is up to me to decide how I want to live and where I lasso my mind and choices/actions in to stay aligned with that which I hold as the HIGHEST.
This is so cool. Who knew? We really do have everything we need right inside us. The place where the Light lives. I get to choose to remember.
Go get the book people! I bet you can get it at C's site as well as Hohm press, amazon, anusara.com. Love shan
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